I am ashamed that I read Marshall's TPM almost daily when Bush was President. I thought he was a fair and honest commentator. I actually thought he was anti-war and ant-corruption, and I used to communicate with him and send him tips.

Then Obama became President, and the scales came off my eyes.

Marshall is a straight-out tribalist and hypocrite, completely in the tank for the Democratic Party, a total shill who'll excuse everything the Blue team does for the same offenses he had guns a-blarin' when the Red team held office.

I wrote Josh Marshall, it was back when Obama was running for his first term. I was calling him out on having hollowed out his site, in terms of principles. He replied with a bunch of expletives and invited me to go pick up political skinny elsewhere (like I hadn't come to that conclusion).

"President Obama’s speech formally declaring that the last 43,000 U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year was designed to mask an unpleasant truth: The troops aren’t being withdrawn because the U.S. wants them out. They’re leaving because the Iraqi government refused to let them stay.

Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq but had instead spent the past few months trying to extend it. A 2008 security deal between Washington and Baghdad called for all American forces to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but the White House -- anxious about growing Iranian influence and Iraq’s continuing political and security challenges -- publicly and privately tried to sell the Iraqis on a troop extension."